Lanfang
Lanfang Lanfang is a civilized nation in Southeast asia starting in the state of Pontianak in western Borneo. Lanfang starts as a Republic. POPs Lanfang has a fairly difficult start because of the fact that it only has one accepted culture, Tionghoa. Until you get the decision to assimilate the Dayaks much later on you are going to have only one focus. Tionghoa are a severe minority in all of your starting provinces and even in Borneo as a whole, so focusing on cultural tech and passing education reforms is a must to get the assimilation rate as high as possible. Malay pops are going to be 50%+ of your nation well into the late game, and as far as I have been able to tell there is no way to get them as an accepted culture. Effective Starting Objectives The colonization of Borneo should be your primary objective, and because you have regulars right off the bat the nearby Malay kingdoms should be easy to subdue. Be careful with your soldier POPs, and switch focus to encourage soldiers for a while if you take serious losses. Otherwise, your focus should be on clergymen, and then bureaucrats in the new Bornean states once you have conquered them. Once you have colonized all of Borneo you should have a decision to core it, take it as soon as possible. The starting RGOs in Borneo are very good and you should be making money hand over fist at this point, focus on literacy and choose your next objective. Malacca is a good choice, as it has multiple precious metal RGOs and a chance to get rubber later on. It also has some of your accepted POP as minorities in its states. Makassar is also a good choice, as there is a coal RGO which will help later if you want to industrialize a bit. Be careful about taking on too many Malay POPs, Java for instance is a very dangerous choice because of potentially huge revolts later on. Great Powers With enough gumption, you could potentially get Lanfang to become a Great Power but I was never able to in my playtesting. Japan will come knocking quickly, and you will probably be sphered by them. This can be useful if you want to take Scandinavian posessions like the Moluccas or Singapore, as they will roll over most of the Scandinavian armies before they can get reinforcements from europe. Burgundy is big and dangerous, don't stir them up too much without backup from Japan or Russia. The Dual Monarchy shouldn't be aggressive to you, just maintain good relations with them. Colonization Lanfang has a good position to build a large naval presence and colonize Polynesia very quickly. Just get liferating techs and watch the islands closely, and you should be able to take several out from under the GPs noses. Africa is also an option, but you will have a hard time outcompeting Scandinavia and Burgundy without a base in the Indian ocean.